{"id":43608,"date":"2025-09-26T00:12:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T00:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/43608\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T00:12:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T00:12:04","slug":"buffalo-fluffalo-adds-to-the-herd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/43608\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Buffalo Fluffalo\u2019 Adds to the Herd"},"content":{"rendered":"

With an estimated 175,000 copies sold, last year\u2019s Buffalo Fluffalo proved exceptionally popular<\/a> for a picture book debut. Penned by comedy writer and memoirist Bess Kalb (Nobody Will Tell You This but Me) and illustrated by Erin Kraan, the rhyming book introduced a grouchy bison, his easygoing friends, and a thundershower that flattens his fur, revealing that his imposing size is mostly fluff. Now Kalb and Kraan have no fewer than three sequels on the way, starting with next week\u2019s release of Buffalo Fluffalo and Puffalo.<\/p>\n

The original read-aloud described a \u201csnuffalo, scruffalo, surly old buffalo,\u201d who greets prairie animals with a stern \u201crebuffalo\u201d but deep down craves acceptance. In the sequel, Buffalo Fluffalo meets a bison calf, Puffalo, who wins him over.<\/p>\n

Kalb, an Emmy-nominated former writer for Jimmy Kimmel Live! and a contributor to the New Yorker, said the original Buffalo Fluffalo emerged fully formed when she began making her young son laugh at \u201c-uffalo\u201d wordplay. She circulated a manuscript among family and friends, then ran it by her agent, Erin Malone at WME, who recognized a picture book in the making.<\/p>\n

Random House Studio VP and executive director Maria Modugno acquired Buffalo Fluffalo in 2021, and VP and publisher Lee Wade took over the project when Modugno retired in 2024. Wade now edits the series. \u201cWe knew early on we had something special when colleagues started quoting Buffalo Fluffalo in meetings, saying, \u2018I don\u2019t know about you, but I\u2019ve had enuffalo!\u2019 \u201d Wade told PW. She saw the grumpy bison as a familiar type, \u201cthat kid who seems big and confident on the outside but is tender and vulnerable underneath.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two years later, when Kalb\u2019s second son was born, so was the idea for Buffalo Fluffalo and Puffalo. In the story, a napping Fluffalo is interrupted by a wailing baby bison, whom he grudgingly shows around the prairie. Puffalo\u2019s \u201ctiny, spiky sweetness\u201d balances the bigger diva\u2019s moods, editor Wade said, and Fluffalo comes to like his small companion. Kalb wrote the book about children adapting to the needs of family members or playground acquaintances. \u201cThe second book came from seeing both of my kids have to live in this new world together,\u201d she said, \u201cand having my oldest, who at that point was just over two years old, go through this world-flipping change where he was not the center of the universe anymore.\u201d She wanted to write \u201ca silly, funny, cute manual for going through any seismic change,\u201d whether warming to a sibling, going to school, or joining a team.<\/p>\n

The series features illustrations by Erin Kraan, an illustrator who also works with Jory John (Everything\u2019s Wrong!, out now) and Kristen Tracy (I Am Speedy, May 2026). In her books with Kalb, Kraan layers woodcut and linocut prints with handmade textures and gouache painting, then polishes her traditional artwork with digital tools. Her printmaking technique can be seen in the curlicues of the bisons\u2019 fur, the prairie landscape\u2019s grasses, and the dramatic clouds filling the wide skies.<\/p>\n

To design Buffalo Fluffalo for the first book, Kraan said, \u201cI focused on capturing his essential traits: an abundance of fluff, a clear visual link to a buffalo, and the ability to convey a wide range of emotions in a way that feels warm and approachable.\u201d She focused on Fluffalo\u2019s oversize head, horns, and snout: \u201cI gave him large, expressive eyes and contrastingly small, thin legs, hinting at the true size hidden beneath the fur.\u201d Her design for Puffalo, she said, emphasized \u201cpuffiness over form,\u201d with \u201cexpressive eyes to communicate emotion\u201d and make him irresistibly cute.<\/p>\n

Those design details have been carried over into MerryMakers plush toys; Fluffalo is already available as a stuffed animal, and a Puffalo stuffie is on the way.<\/p>\n

Kalb believes that emotional warmth is the series\u2019 strength. \u201cBoth books end with a snuggly hug, which I think is essential to any parent and child\u2019s reading experience,\u201d she said. \u201cThese books take place on a very happy prairie, where the main character learns that a kind and gentle world is possible if he accepts it.\u201d She noted that the next Fluffalo book will be \u201cabout conflict resolution, with kids starting school and learning about apologizing, something maybe adults could learn a thing or two from.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also posits that read-aloud can be a little like standup comedy, and she writes with a tough crowd in mind. \u201cI write for bedtime and story time,\u201d Kalb said, \u201cand you\u2019re sometimes starting with no opener, with a cold audience. Like, people have just had their bath, they\u2019ve gotten their hair combed, they\u2019re in pajamas, they are not happy. It\u2019s important to start with a character who matches their harrumph-iness and then finds out that everything is okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buffalo Fluffalo and Puffalo by Bess Kalb, illus. by Erin Kraan. Random House Studio, $18.99 Sept. 30 ISBN 978-0-593-81030-9<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With an estimated 175,000 copies sold, last year\u2019s Buffalo Fluffalo proved exceptionally popular for a picture book debut.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[32532,288,32531,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-43608","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-bess-kalb","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-buffalo-fluffalo-and-puffalo","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}